Unrequited Love In Ovid's Metamorphoses

Many of the greatest poems, ballads, songs, stories, and epics share a common theme, love. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, that theme is found many times, but underlying that theme is the theme of unrequited love. For Ovid, anyone can be affected by it and in some cases, the other person does come to love the other in return, but the most common ending to the story is that it remains only the one in love while the other remains out. Ovid gives his readers several examples of unrequited love. But four of his finest show a god, a nymph, a cyclops, and a minor goddess being rejected and each dealing with rejection their own way.

The first story of unrequited love is in the first book. It is the story of Apollo and Daphne, showing that even the gods can

Narcissus was the son of a river god and a nymph. It was prophesied at his birth that he would live a long life if “he shall himself not know” (Ovid, Book three, Line 347). Echo was a nymph who angered Juno by distracted her while Jupiter was with other nymphs. Juno cursed her so that, “when speaking ends,/ All she can do is double each last word,/ And echo back again the voice she’s heard” (Ovid, Book 3, Line 364-6). When Narcissus was sixteen, he went out hunting with a group of friends and was separated from them. As he was wandering, Echo saw him and fell in love, but could not call out to him, so she waited for him to call out first. When he did, she echoed her reply to him, trying to bring him closer to her. When they met, she embraced him and used his words against him by telling him that she would yield to him. After finally realizing that he did not love her in return, Echo left and slowly began to fade away until all that was left of her was her voice. Later, after having mocked and scorned many others, a prayer was offered that Narcissus might love someone who did not love him in return. This pray was granted when kneeling by a pool of water, Narcissus saw his reflection in the water and fell in love with it. He reached for reflection, and upon realizing that he could not reach it, he sat there and admired it until he, like Echo, faded away. All that remained of him were small white flowers with golden centers. This story shows both of the characters having unrequited love that came from within themselves. No outside source gave them the feeling that they felt. Echo fell in love and after being rejected, she wept until she died, leaving only her voice as a memorial to herself. Narcissus, after not being able to reach the thing he loved, faded away leaving only a flower to be remembered by. Both lost themselves in trying to love someone who would never return their